Despite a pay freeze in public sector, the Home Office basks in bonuses
Despite an almost crippling budget and extreme spending cuts, senior Home Office workers will continue to receive generous bonuses, despite receiving no formal pay rise.
However, the Immigrations Minister, Damian Green specified that a total of £770,000 worth of bonuses would be given to the Whitehall department, which would be a dramatic cut compared with last year, when £1.4 million was given. It was also stated that only four per cent out of the total 8.6 percent of the pay that was usually allocated for performance bonuses would be given to the senior officials. However, the Labour Committee chairman Keith Vaz said that this did not guarantee a pay cut because the bonuses were being awarded as if they were compulsory, rather than a privilege.
The Commons home affairs committee expressed concerns with regards to the way in which such bonuses should be ’automatically’awarded, given that additional benefits are supposed to be subject to discretion anyway. The salaries senior Home Office workers varies from £55,000 to above £200,000 and this year the best-paid civil servants would be eligible to receive bonuses for work they did in 2008. Up to 25 percent could receive bonuses of £20,000 this year but the cuts in the overall distribution in bonuses will help save £15 million a year for the public sector. It was disclosed that the chief of the UK Border Agency, Lin Homer received between £10,000 and £15,000 in bonuses in 2009, adding to her salary of £200,000.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, David Cameron, expressed his determination to put a stop to what he calls ’crazy’bonuses for civil servants, at a time when the public sector faces radical cuts in expenditure. In 2009, bonuses amounting to £130 million in total were awarded to civil servants, which is enough money to build a dozen new schools and pay all of the people who would be working school management jobs. The Home Office is now preparing for a substantial reduction in police numbers as a result of the budget cuts.
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